The present disclosure relates generally to a header apparatus for providing electrical connection to a main printed circuit board, a daughter card connected to a header apparatus, and a circuit assembly including the header apparatus, daughter card, and main printed circuit board.
Traditional header apparatuses are used to form electrical connections between main printed circuit boards and daughter cards. Typically, a header may comprise a plurality of conductive pins, opposing ends of which are connected to through holes located at the main printed circuit board and the daughter card. However, this configuration becomes inefficient when surface mounted components are used on the daughter card. For example, a wave soldering or press fit method may be required for connecting the daughter card and the connector, whereas reflow soldering may be required for attaching surface mounted components to the daughter card.
FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary configuration of a daughter card 400 and connector 440. A traditional daughter card 400 may comprise a plurality of components 410 connected thereto. The components 410 may be connected to a plurality of through holes 430 via a bus 420. The daughter card 400 may electrically and mechanically connect to a connector 440 at the plurality of through holes 430. The connector 440 comprises daughter card legs 450 and main circuit board legs 460. Daughter card legs 450 of the connector 440 extend into the through holes 430 and are typically soldered at a rear side of the daughter card using wave soldering. Main circuit board legs 460 are configured to extend into through holes associated with a main circuit board and may be soldered using a wave soldering method at a rear surface of the main circuit board in a manner similar to that described in relation to daughter card 400, or may be press fit to the main circuit board.
Although the connector 440 may be secured to a daughter card using wave soldering or press fitting as described above, a second soldering or fitting method must be used to connect surface mounted components to the daughter card 400. Thus, the time, expense, and complexity associated with connecting a daughter card 400, connector 440, and a main circuit board is unnecessarily high in the related art.
What is needed in the art is a header apparatus for providing electrical connection to a printed circuit board which provides reduced manufacturing time, reduced cost, and decreased manufacturing complexity compared to the current method. One solution described herein provides a header designed to permit a single soldering operation associated with both attaching components to a daughter card and connecting the daughter card to the header. Such a header design may greatly decrease the time, expense, and complexity associated with current header designs which require through hole connection for connecting a header and daughter card. Another solution described herein which relates the above-described deficiencies of the existing methods involves permitting pins associated with a header to be press fit within the header rather than being formed as part of the molding process.